When is the next stable release of Debian planed to be released?

vrkalak [ Moderator ] Oct 4, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

As per the Debian philosophy … “when it’s ready.”

When a version of Debian is ‘stable’ enough … and all the ‘bugs’ have been worked out and/or fixed. Gee, releasing a ‘stable’ bug-free release … what a concept.

The date, of course, has not been set. But, from previous experience, I would project Debian 6.0 Squeeze, to be released as ‘stable’ in the first 2-3 months of next year. (2011) And, well worth the wait, I might add.

NN comments

thomasrutter [ Editor ] Oct 4, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

Debian does not make stable releases according to a certain date.

Releases are made when, in the release managers' opinion, the frozen “testing” distribution has reached a level of stability and reliability.

This is known as a “it’s released when it’s ready” policy.

The two main criteria for making this decision are the number of release-critical bugs remaining in testing, and the meeting of the release goals. The aim is to get the release-critical bugs down to zero, though nowadays that may not always be practical, but nonetheless it's still the goal.

You could probably look at the remaining RC (release-critical) bug count to estimate how long it's going to take to squash them. It'll probably be at least a few more months more of freeze yet.

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Jeremiah C. Foster [ Editor ] Oct 4, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

While Debian lives by its unofficial motto “when it’s ready” in fact there is something of a schedule. Squeeze specifically is planned to be released this year (2010). This of course is a rough timetable and the release itself will only occur, as the other answers have stated, when all the release goal are met. This is because Debian’s users want a stable system and Debian aims to produce a GNU/Linux distribution for its users.

But releases nonetheless tend to have a schedule. The last two releases (etch and lenny) were delivered within a 24 month window, and it looks as if squeeze will follow suit. So one can say that Debian aims to create a new stable distribution every two years and the past releases would bear that out.

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Kartik Mistry Oct 7, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

Squeeze is in ‘deep’ freeze i.e. it should be release anytime between 2 to 6 months from now :)

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Andrew Cater [ Editor ] Oct 7, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

Latest estimate from the release team is approximately December 2010 with Nov ember being used to finalise the Debian installer packages. This for the next “stable” release Debian 6.0 also known as Squeeze. [Debian 7.0 will be Wheezy].

Joey Hess' proposal for Continously Usable Testing [CUT] would mean that releases could be more fluid, with some users opting to stay with Testing. Details remain to be worked out.

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Wesley Frazier [ Editor ] Oct 11, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

I am optimistically hoping for February, but can’t imagine it coming out much sooner. I subscribe to planet.debian.net’s rss feed to keep up to date with it.

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PaulCarroty [ Editor ] Oct 7, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

In the spring:)

NN comments

Spring in the northern hemisphere or spring in the southern, or was that your point? ;)

Oct 13, 2010

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7 answers

vrkalak [ Moderator ] Oct 4, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

thomasrutter [ Editor ] Oct 4, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

Jeremiah C. Foster [ Editor ] Oct 4, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

Kartik Mistry Oct 7, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

Andrew Cater [ Editor ] Oct 7, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

Wesley Frazier [ Editor ] Oct 11, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

PaulCarroty [ Editor ] Oct 7, 2010 (Edited Oct 20, 2010)

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